“The official acts of a Pope are infallible?” she questioned, with feverish insistence, after the first futile attempt to speak.  “The Holy Father who succeeds him may not undo his acts of mercy?”

“Yes, yes, it is true,” Santorio assented, waiting eagerly for the sequence.

A little color had crept into her cheeks; her hands were burning; they grasped the physician’s arm like a vise; the change was alarming.

“The edict cannot hurt my baby!  Santissima Maria, thou hast saved him!” she cried.  “For he hath the special blessing of his Holiness Pope Clement, and our Holy Father cannot reach him with this curse of Venice!”

“We cannot keep her mind from it,” said Santorio, aside to Marcantonio; “it is essential to calm it with the right view—­no argument, it might induce the most dangerous excitement.  Send for some bishop or theologian who takes the right view; let him present it as a fact, and with authority; her life depends upon it.”

He leaned down to his patient in deep commiseration to tell her that all was well—­that Venice was under no ban, that God’s blessing still shielded her churches and her children; but she raised her eyes steadily to his, and the strength of the belief, which he saw clearly written within them, filled him with awe and hushed his speech.  How was it possible to make her understand!

“Nay,” said Marina faintly, still holding him with her sad, solemn eyes, “do not speak.  Since Fra Francesco comes no more there is but one who speaketh truth to me.  It is the vision of my beautiful Mater Dolorosa of San Donato, which leaveth me not.”

There was a stir in the depths of the streets below—­a noise of the populace coming nearer, following along the banks of the Canal Grande, as if the cause of their excitement were in some hurried movement on its placid waters; the shouts and jeers of the strident voices were broken by authoritative commands of the Signori della Notte—­the officers of police—­and the tramp of their guards failing to create order; and above the hubbub rose the cry, distinctly repeated again and again—­the cry of an angry populace, “Ande in malora!  Ande in malora!” ("Curses go with you!”)

XXII

Even Giustinian Giustiniani came and went heavily, asking for the latest change before he returned to the Senate Chamber, and carrying with him always a vision of that white, pleading face which had so wrought upon his anger when he had seen it luminous with her hope for Venice.  But now his anger was transferred to her confessor who had bewitched her, to all those Roman prelates who had paid her court—­a mere child, not able to defend herself nor to understand, killing herself for a question beyond her!  And Marcantonio, for love of her, useless and unmanned!  It was more than his senatorial pride could endure to find himself powerless under such complications.  To appease his wrath he denounced Fra Francesco through the Bocca di Leone, but when the friar was sought for, by order of the Ten, he was not found.  Fra Paolo was appealed to, for he was the friend of the gentle confessor; but he had not known his plans.  “If his conscience held him not, it was well for him to flee,” he said, “and best for Venice.”